Comments on: Pinebook Pro first impressions

By: Richard Hidvegi

Richard Hidvegi — Sun, 03 Mar 2024 07:30:34 +0000

This is an old story but I wanted to share it.

I got my pinebook last year for a coffee.

My friend said It is a peace of junk.

After one year it is my go to solution for writing emails or just learning some stuff.

It has some limitations but I can live without spotify and netflix XD

Beside that I have a chromebook tablet as well. (Lenovo ideapad 3)

I installed an SSD as well and created services to manage the A72 cores for battery time. (The SSD was a little bit strange in the start but after reading about it is now fine)

Since then it is running fine with armbian.

😉

By: neozeed

neozeed — Sat, 31 Jul 2021 08:15:36 +0000

In reply to bifo.

sounds awesome! I have a keyboard somewhere around here… I just need to get time without my kids yelling and acting like wild animals… lol

By: bifo

bifo — Sat, 31 Jul 2021 08:14:09 +0000

Hey Neozeed, long time reader and also PBP owner. Wanted to let you know there’s a firmware update for the touchpad that fixes pretty much all of the issues you mentioned:
https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=14531
https://github.com/dragan-simic/pinebook-pro-keyboard-updater

Make SURE you follow the directions, and if you’re still booting manjaro instead of switching to debian, you’ll need an external USB keyboard because it deactivates the internal keyboard as well for some reason (but only in manjaro). Takes 3 minutes and the improvements are top notch.

By: neozeed

neozeed — Mon, 31 May 2021 00:05:51 +0000

In reply to PHILIP JONES.

Thanks! I’m still amazed at the screen, they warn of poor performance, dead pixels but wow it seems great, although I haven’t done any refresh testing with a 100fps camera.. but it’s just so incredibly high resolution and clear!

For me the annoyance seems to be the 4gb of ram and pockey processor. But again it’s that price point. Browsers are just overall terrible all consuming singing and dancing apps.

I need to upgrade the storage but all that means is that I’m using it more. It’s incredible value, unlike the loongson MIPS that is more of a curiosity, as little endian mips gets no love and word is China is moving all RISC-V so MIPS may very well die with the lawyers that are fighting hard to prevent people from using MIPS.

By: PHILIP JONES

PHILIP JONES — Mon, 31 May 2021 00:00:31 +0000

I’ve had my Pinebook Pro for nearly a year and can only say that it seriously grows on you. I found Manjaro a bit strange but I think that was as much the KDE/Plasma interface as the OS itself. I think there’s an XFCE version too and I need to try it to make a fair comparison as that’s a DE I’ve used a lot.
The trackpad started by being very annoying but there’s a section on it in the Manjaro Pinebook notes and you can tinker with the settings and get it pretty smooth. In particular I like the scroll feature from running your finger along the side edge of the trackpad.
Overall I think the laptop is amazing value and very usable. I find I’m using it ever more frequently because it just seems that bit more convenient to pick up and put down – and the screen makes working on it really pleasant.
Good luck with the rest of the first 12 months!

By: neozeed

neozeed — Sat, 22 May 2021 14:37:05 +0000

In reply to Gira93. It’s most likely what I’ll end up doing. It’s too harsh an environment to really conform to.

By: Gira93

Gira93 — Sat, 22 May 2021 09:04:01 +0000

You definitely need to try Debian on it, there’s an unofficial installer that uses debootstrap and prepares a MicroSD with debian testing on it; you’ll feel at home with it.